bloomberg.com Archives - 04 April 2013, Thursday

Three Lebanese soccer match officials were charged in Singapore with corruptly receiving “free sexual service” as an inducement to fix an Asian Football Confederation Cup match this week. Referee Ali Sabbagh and assistant referees Ali Eid and Abdallah Taleb were replaced before the Ap...

As we consider the digital-currency phenomenon that is Bitcoin, bear in mind that there are, broadly speaking, two accounts of the origin and history of money. One is elegant, intuitive and taught in many introductory economics textbooks. The other is true. The financial economist Cha...

President Barack Obama called Singapore “one of the most successful countries in the world” and expressed appreciation for its military and economic cooperation, part of his administration’s foreign policy shift toward Asia. Singapore has provided “a steady vision of how countries in ...

Li Huabo, a former local government official accused of a 94 million yuan ($15 million) fraud in China , was sentenced to 15 months in jail for receiving stolen money in his Singapore bank accounts. Judge Siva Shanmugam said Li’s crimes involved some degree of sophistication when hand...

Vitol Group, the world’s largest independent oil trader, began trading global grain markets from Singapore and Geneva, with support from staff in Canada and Germany to start next month. The team will be headed by Don Chapman, based in Vancouver , the Geneva-based company said in a sta...

UBS AG, sued for wrongful dismissal by two former traders in Singapore , said they were fired for serious misconduct and won a bid to seal documents in the cases. “Premature disclosure of the bank’s investigation into the fired traders would hamper the bank’s ongoing probe into the ma...

Singapore home prices climbed at the slowest pace in three quarters after the government imposed more curbs such as higher stamp duties for housing transactions, a government report showed. The island state’s private residential property price index rose 0.5 percent to a record 213.1 ...

Barclays Plc (BARC) dismissed a Singapore- based private banker and is helping authorities investigate potential wrongdoing affecting clients’ assets. The banker was fired on Feb. 6 and the company is working with the white-collar crime investigation agency of the Singapore police for...

Juerg Buergin, a former UBS AG (UBSN) executive, must face trial on charges he paid for sex with an underage prostitute in Singapore, a judge ruled. Based on the evidence presented, the prosecution “has satisfied every ingredient of the charge,” Singapore subordinate courts judge Eddy...

Welcome to the real world, Bitcoin. The U.S. government has officially legitimized the popular crypto-currency and other "virtual currencies" by attempting to regulate them. The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network published a list of guidelines Monday applying money-l...

March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Sara Eisen takes a look at Bitcoin, what it is and how it's used. She speaks on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers." (Source: Bloomberg) Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Worried your government is going to take your savings? There's an app for that. Actually, there's an entire currency: Bitcoin, an online-only currency based on a decentralized network. It's unregulated, hard to track and increasingly common. Since Sunday, downloads of three Bitcoin-re...

Singapore’s property trusts , the second-best performers in Asia in the past year, may have to diversify funding sources as they aren’t prepared for an “interest rate shock,” according to Fitch Ratings . The city’s real estate investment trusts or REITs have been increasing short-term...

Singapore said it’s disappointed by a plan by two U.S. senators to block funding to a research institute until the Federal Bureau of Investigation gets full access in the probe of American Shane Todd’s death. Max Baucus and Jon Tester, both Montana Democrats, on March 14 introduced an...

Singapore ’s home sales plunged 65 percent to a 14-month low in February after the government introduced its seventh round of cooling measures to cool record home prices. Home sales dropped to 708 units in February from a revised 2,016 units in January, according to data released by t...

The cost of Singapore vehicle permits fell by the most in more than four years after the government limited the amount of money banks are allowed to offer for car loans. The price of so-called certificate of entitlements, or COEs, plunged 37 percent for cars with an engine capacity of...

Enlarge image Vuitton to Tiffany Seen Pressured in Japan by Weaker Yen Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg A pedestrian walks past an Emporio Armani store, operated by Giorgio Armani SpA, in the Omotesando district of Tokyo. Japan’s economy has been mired in deflation for the last 15 years, prompti...

The Singapore police said it will share evidence with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation relating to the death of Shane Todd, an American research engineer who worked in the city. “The Singapore Police Force and FBI have engaged in several discussions and are working together,” ...

Former U.S. President George W. Bush’s brother will become the chairman of SingXpress Land Ltd. (SINX) as he invests in the Singapore-based real estate developer. The stock surged to an 11-month high. Neil Bush is buying shares of the company as it raises S$226.5 million through a rig...

Qantas Airways Ltd. (QAN) , Australia’s largest carrier, is discounting flights to Asia to lure more passengers as an alliance with Emirates adds 40 percent more seats on routes to Singapore . The carrier has “still got a lot of capacity to fill” on aircraft flying to and from Asia, S...

A probe into the death of an American research engineer in Singapore was discussed at a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Democrat Senator Max Baucus of Montana , the family of the deceased said. Rick Todd said the family disputed the Singapore police’s conclusion...

CapitaLand Ltd. (CAPL) headed for the lowest close in three months, leading declines among the city’s property stocks, on speculation the government will introduce additional measures to cool the housing market. Southeast Asia’s biggest developer sank as much as 3.5 percent to S$3.60 ...

Singapore Exchange Ltd. (SGX) will increase revenue from derivatives 10 percent to 15 percent this year as the operator of Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse introduces more products linked to benchmark stock indexes in the region, President Muthukrishnan Ramaswami said in an interview. ...

U.S. Senator Max Baucus said he is “nowhere close” to resolving his questions about the death of an American research engineer in Singapore . Baucus, a Montana Democrat, met on March 5 with Singapore’s ambassador to the U.S., Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, and said yesterday he has more meeting...

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S (MAERSKB) , owner of the world’s biggest container-shipping company, plans to add more vessels to its Singapore base after making the city-state its biggest hub after the headquarters in Denmark. Maersk has about 120 ships under the Singapore flag, the most aft...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation will assist Singapore police in a probe into the death of an American research engineer in the Asian city. The Singapore police had asked the family of Shane Todd to share any evidence in their possession related to his death with the local authorit...